Met officers facing sack over school strip-search of Child Q revealed

Three Metropolitan Police officers facing the sack over the strip-search of a black schoolgirl wrongly accused of possessing cannabis have been named. Detective Constable Kristina Linge will appear before a three-week gross misconduct hearing alongside PCs Victoria Wray and PC Rafal Szmydynski on June 2 over the treatment of Child Q. The girl was searched while on her period with no appropriate adult present at a school in Hackney after being accused of carrying drugs on December 3, 2020.

Nothing was found in her bags or outer clothing. Hundreds attended large protests across east London and outside Stoke Newington Police Station after a safeguarding review revealed she was taken out of an exam to the school’s medical room for a strip-search while teachers remained outside. Her intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, it was said. According to a notice of the disciplinary hearing, Child Q’s search was “disproportionate in all the circumstances” and performed in a “unjustified, inappropriate, disproportionate, humiliating and degrading” manner.

It is alleged the “child’s race” was a reason no regard had been given to the absence of a suitable adult or concern for her age and sex. Scotland Yard claims Szmydynski and Linge each made a misleading record of the search after its conclusion. Announcing news that the officers would face a misconduct panel, Independent Office for Police Conduct director Steve Noonan said in September 2023: “The ‘strip search’ of Child Q, a 15-year-old girl, at her school in Hackney caused widespread concern.

“We have investigated the circumstances surrounding how this child was treated that day as fully as possible.”. If gross misconduct is proved, the officers could be sacked. A fourth officer will have a disciplinary meeting over the fact that no appropriate adult was present. Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway, who leads policing in Hackney and Tower Hamlets, said at the time: “We have been clear in saying that the experience of Child Q should never have happened and was truly regrettable.

“While we have publicly apologised, I am also writing formally to Child Q and her family to say sorry for the trauma that we caused her. “It will now be for the hearing panel to determine whether the matters against the three officers are proven and it is important we don’t pre-judge the outcome.”. Last year, the Met announced a “child-first” approach to policing but stressed that it does not mean a “free pass” for criminality by young people.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the five-year strategy recognises that the force had sometimes focused “too hard” on criminality and not the “vulnerability that lies behind it”. All officers will receive new training in childhood vulnerability and adultification bias, which means young people from certain backgrounds are viewed as more grown up. Sir Mark added more senior levels of authorisation are now needed for strip searches, and that the number being carried out has reduced because the force “had been overusing this power”.